Dave’s Landslide Blog—an excellent overview of how the flooding began: The regular seasonal monsoon rains started on July 27th, initially impacting the Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province (formerly NWFP). The following graph shows the sudden increase in rainfall in that region from July 29th.

“The loss of life appears to have been the result of a combination of losses in the main rivers and their tributaries, flash floods in upper catchments, collapses of mud brick houses, and landslides.”—Dave’s Landslide Blog.

Downstream the impact of the incredibly heavy rainfall on the Indus River catchment shows increased inflows.

Relation with Russian wildfires and the Jetstreams, at the Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog at Weather Underground. In simple words, the normal jetstreams that keep separate the hot and dry weather of Pakistan from the cold wet wet weather of Northern Europe (left image) went wonky (right image). This resulted in their normal rainfall being dumped into Pakistan and thus an extremely dry Russia. And this was on top of the regular monsoon rains!

The August 3rd report by Save the Children reports that 32% of households are affected by the floods, 21% of housing structures and 26% of school buildings have been damaged, and standing crops and orchards have been badly damaged (these are the main source of income and food). Link (PDF) to full report: Rapid Assessment Report of Flood-Affected Communities in Swat District

KKH is blocked through till mid-September, according to chairman NDMA. Air routes are dependent on the weather, which has been volatile to the extent of severely limited relief efforts. Donkeys and mules are the way to go. Meanwhile, with food, water and fuel shortages, hunger strikes Gilgit-Baltistan, “The vulnerable-to-weather air supply system has failed to provide relief to far flung villages of the region which are worst hit due to flash floods and landslides. Prolonged disruption of the supply routes has the potential to make hundreds of families face starvation in different remote parts of Gilgit-Baltistan.”

Pakistan after the flood, a longer-term perspective: “The waters will recede, and life will go back to what it was. The real problem isn’t the flood, it’s the fact that life will return back to where it was before the floods, and that the entire effort of the country and it’s many ‘allies’ is directed to that end.”